It’s hard to believe, but Genesis have been powered by the flawless chops of Chester Thompson for 30 years. Quite where the time has gone is anyone’s guess, but for three decades the genre-defying drummer (whose CV, let us not forget, also includes Frank Zappa, Weather Report and Michael McDonald) has sat behind Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks and seen the band evolve from prog-rock giants to popstars proper.
So when confirmation of a Genesis reunion tour for 2007 finally broke, it was inevitable that the good-natured American should be revealed as drum throne occupant again. Fifteen years after their last outing, the old crew – with stage guitarist Daryl Stuermer also summoned to thefold – were back. And fans couldn’t get their hands on tickets fast enough. Reports of 100,000 tickets selling out in 90 minutes began circulating, increasing the excitement surrounding the band’s return to the stage. And with a set-list that includes old-school prog favourites beloved of hardcore fans, alongside newer tunes, the tour has been a huge critical success. 
Not that all this has gone to Chester’s head. He’s as laid-back as ever when Power On catches up with him, and happy to recount the story of how the Turn It On Again tour all came together…

A high-profile tour like this doesn’t just come together in a couple of weeks, so how far in advance did you get wind that it was in the offing?
“There have been rumours for years, of course, and I’d been aware that it might happen at some point. But we actually first got back together in 2006 and played for a couple of weeks to see what we sounded like after 15 years. I guess I was called in about May 2006 and we actually met up to play in October. So even then I had plenty of notice.”

And how rusty were you after a decade-and-a-half away from the Genesis set-list?
“It was better than any of us expected I think. There rehearsals weren’t terribly far off where we needed to be, which was encouraging. All of us are quite a bit more mature as musicians than we were fifteen years ago.  It’s hard to put your finger on, but we’re more seasoned players, and I think that made it easier to settle in with each other than we thought it might.”

You’re always busy with other things away from Genesis of course. Do you have to get into a certain headspace when you’re playing with the band?
“Absolutely, I definitely do. Genesis is a strange thing compared to a lot of the sessions I do. With a recording session, you go in, get a chart, look through and nail your parts. But with Genesis, nothing’s charted, yet it’s still structured; you have to kind of define your own ‘bit’. But that’s what makes it fun.
“We’ve been doing a lot of the earlier, more progressive stuff on this tour. That’s been great fun – it’s a nice challenge to play and to try and bring some freshness within the existing structures.”

Were you always planning to cover a wide spectrum of Genesis material in the set? There’s such a variation in material, from the 80s pop stuff to much more progressive early songs. It must have made decisions very difficult…
“The question of what to include in the set-list was a very hard one. We’d all forgotten just how much material there is to choose from. But I think we ended up with a set that represents everything that Genesis is about. You can’t please everyone all the time, of course, and some fans are obviously more into one period than another, but I think we struck a good balance.”

Are there any particular sections of the set that you particularly enjoy?
“I have to say I’m into all of it. We’ve picked the very strongest material that we have, so there are no songs in there that I don’t enjoy playing.
“But of course one of the cool things about this tour is the amount of double drumming that Phil and I are doing. There’s a lot more of that than we’ve done in the past, which we both love and the audience always responds really well to.”

It’s a key part of the performance, so how much time do you and Phil have to devote to working out what your double-drumming duets are going to consist of?
“We don’t actually spend a whole lot of time working out what we’re going to do. We might spend an hour or so putting the basic outline together, just jamming through ideas till we get to stuff that we both like. And then we’ll spend some time in rehearsals refining the piece and making sure we’re playing the same fills at the same time. But it’s a pretty quick, natural process for us at this point.”

You both appear quite different as players from the outside – is that fair comment, or do you have more in common than we realise?
“Phil and I share quite a lot of roots – we both love the jazz drummers like Tony Williams and Elvin Jones – but I’m a bit more studied than he is, and he got into The Beatles and songwriting sooner than I did, so we took separate paths while we were learning. I was always into jazz, but Phil obviously takes quite a lot from rock’n’roll. But we both have a real appreciation of drumming history.”

And gear, of course. Phil’s known for his big old concert tom set-up, and you’ve got a fantastic acoustic/electronic combination for this tour too…
“Yes indeed. I have a huge ‘dinosaur’ Drum Workshop kit with double bass drums. Not many people use them as a matter of course now, but I still love them. I have a single snare and eight toms, running between 8” and 18”. And on this tour I have eight cymbals on the kit, which is more than I’d usually have, but there are a couple of splashes and things that I have for just one song, so they all have to be up there.”

And Roland gear plays a key part alongside the DW kit, doesn’t it?
“Electronics have been really important to me on this tour. And we tried a couple of different options before I settled on the rig I have now.

“Basically what I needed was a set-up that could trigger existing sounds from some of the records. Doing that obviously means the live show sounds as close as possible to what people are used to hearing. So I have triggers on my snare and four of the toms and we started off using just a simple trigger-to-MIDI unit in conjunction with the sampler.
“But that didn’t quite work for me, because of some of the specific functions I needed during the set. So we ended up hooking the triggers up to a TD-12 module, which gives us so much more control and flexibility. The TD-12 is in turn hooked up to a Fantom-X rack module, where I have all the sounds I need. The Fantom is an incredible piece of equipment. I went through and made all the samples myself and the Fantom is so easy to use it’s fantastic. And although we’re not using the sounds from the module itself on this tour, it’s an incredible sounding synth. I love it.”

And you’re a fan of the full V-Drum kits too, we hear…
“Oh yeah. I have a V-Drum kit backstage too. I use it every night to warm up with, and it’s been a wonderful set-up to have. The great thing about it is that I can choose from a massive selection of sounds, so each night I can warm up with whatever I feel like. I don’t just have to sit with a practice pad, I can actually work on a latin groove, or some rock things with the appropriate sounds. It’s inspiring and it makes sure that I go on stage fired up each night.”